February 15, 2011

More Linkspam

I think I’m going to start trying to run these on a biweekly basis. Because there’s pretty good stuff out there and I’d like to showcase the things that other people might not have seen yet. In particular, there has been some excellent stuff written about what a douche Dan Savage is of late which needs showcasing.

According to Dan Savage, however, I’m just selfish and sadistic. I don’t deserve to date you great and superior sexual people and should just take my abnormality elsewhere because I will make your life MISERABLE.

Forget things like compromise and respect of the person you love! Oh, no, all romantic relationships are totally based entirely on sex, yo. Didn’t you realise this? NO!? Oh, then you’re an idiot who lives to make sexual people miserable because you’re an eeeevil, manipulative asexual who would never tell a prospective partner about your sexuality. You horrible, horrible asexual; you should be ashamed of yourself and crawl in a hole somewhere!

Sex is not a necessary or obligatory part of dating or relationships, but a personal choice.No one is obligated to be in a sexual relationship if they do not wish to be, just as no one is obligated to enter into a sexless relationship if sex is something they need from their partner.

But to lighten the tone a little, I am very curious about and fascinated with this new idea of performing asexuality: that just as there’s a way to perform ‘feminine’, which I have been doing and having fun with, there is another option to advertise that ‘I am not subscribing to your binaries’. I just have no idea how to go about that yet. And I fully recognize that it is not as black-and-white as I’m making it out to be above and that I actually have the option to perform different things in different contexts and places.

From Patchworkghost, demisexuality is not, in fact, a choice or a values judgement:

Many people mistake demisexuals (and asexuals) as people who have chosen abstinence, celibacy or are waiting for that “special someone”. And many mistake this as a choice based on religion or some sort of “purity” ideal (such as waiting until marriage to have sex).

Sara Beth Brooks did a guest post about asexuality at Pam’s House Blend. Warning: comments absolutely not asexual-friendly, although the post itself is pretty awesome.

When I signed up online to attend last year’s Creating Change conference in Dallas, I was asked to fill in my sexual orientation. I checked “queer,” but that isn’t wholly accurate; Asexuality wasn’t listed as one of the orientations that you could select.

From Paigehasissues, a criticism of romance = happiness, especially in fandom:

This emphasis on romantic love as the most important thing of all is over-the-top. I thought that when I considered myself heterosexual and it is still just as over-the-top now that I identify as asexual. Love is not everything. It doesn’t seem to occur to people sometimes when they claim that a character, especially a heartbroken one, “deserves a happy ending,” the happy ending could turn out to be that the character gets over the person that broke their heart. They have overcome a great obstacle and are (usually) happy afterward. How is that not a happy ending? For some reason, they must acquire a significant other to have a “true” happy ending.

And a piece I found on Restructure, not about asexuality per se but has some interesting criticism of “sex is a basic human need” rhetoric:

Of course, if one assumes that sex is a more basic need than security of body, then the ethical corollary would be that rape is justified. If you accept “rape is wrong” as an axiom, then you should agree that a person’s security of body/the right to be not raped has a higher priority than a person’s “need” for sex.

You’re welcome! Also, thanks for the compliment–I’ve been doing them because I keep tripping over things I like, and I was hoping other people might find them interesting. I’m glad to know I was right about that!

Just wanted to comment for once and let you know how amazing and important this blog is to me. 🙂 I really enjoy reading your posts, and your link round ups keep me reading what I should be reading.
Thanks!

I got linked! For some reason, this makes me feel incredibly awesome, especially since that post wasn’t written when I was exactly coherent. -clears throat awkwardly-
Warm fuzzies abound with bounding! They’re rather like bunnies in that regard, you see. -offers hug of gratitude-